Throughout the past year we have written a lot of blogs on how to encourage writing in children and we have found excellent resources from teachers and educational blogs. Well, we found another one! Here is a great idea for a child who has a hard time beginning a story. (Introductions are always my hardest part to start too.) These story starter activities are more like games, so they are fun as well as education! If you try any of them, please let us know how it went!

Here at the Exciting Read Publishing Group we always love when we hear stories about story telling, bookmaking, reading, and writing workshops for children. It’s exciting to know that there are groups that support creative projects. The Children’s Media Project located in Poughkeepsie, will be hosting a free storytelling and bookmaking workshop for children on Saturday, May 1st or June 12th at the Lady Washington Firehouse in Poughkeepsie. Stop by from 1pm-3pm and children can write their own stories! Children’s Media Project (CMP) is a non-profit arts and education organization with a history of empowering “at-risk” youth through the media arts. CMP believes in making a social investment for community transformation by providing access to the skills and tools necessary for creation and appreciation of media as art, as education, and as entrepreneurship. The CMP’s programs encourage youth to not only explore the world around them, but to also be active participants. CMP provides workshops, programs, and projects for youth, artists, and educators that teach critical viewing of the media, that encourage youth to be creatively engaged in using the media to deliver important messages, and that offer employment and growth opportunities for youth. Enjoy!

Did you like to act? When I was younger, I loved to act out plays and create my own characters in those plays. Once we created the Undercover Kid’s puppet show and started taking it around to schools, I started to notice what a great play this book would make. There’s adventure, comedy and suspense all these things make for an exciting play. (It would be really funny to see Cooper running around on stage). What if the Undercover Kids ended up on Broadway? I’m getting ahead of myself. But I could definitely see the Undercover Kids on Stage.

Do you think that you could write your own play involving the Undercover Kids? What would happen? Where would they go? Would you be in the play too? Write your own play (it could even be a page), then act it out for your friends and family. Post it on YouTube with your parent’s permission and maybe you will become an internet star!

The group here at excitingread publishing group is always looking for fun writing activities for kids to enjoy. One activity you can try is telling a story in only six words! I tried this activity myself by choosing a topic to write about then timing myself to see how many six word stories I could do in ten minutes. Let me tell you this was quite a challenge! This is a great way to practice your descriptive language and writing skills. Check out this website to learn more! On the website you can view a book of memoirs (when a writer writes about his or her own life), that was put together by third grade students.

Here are some examples:

“Five continents down, two to go.”

“Age 11: became a middle child.”

“Fourteen years old, story still untold.”

“Looking to know everything about everything.”

Those are just a few of the creative entries. I’m sure there are more stories to be told. What’s yours?

Katie, Jake & Cooper

Great adventure, Mystery & history books for kids. Plus fundraising opportunities for community groups.